High Sierras

The weeks before the trip were always tense with anticipation.  Boxes were packed, lists were compiled, recipes gathered until finally the 8 hour drive to The Sierras.

The first night we would watch sleepily from the safety of the car as our parents struggled to match minute dots of paint on the myriad of tent poles by car headlight. When the old army tent was finally erect with the Coleman lantern sputtering at its apex we would stumble out with our pillows and sleeping bags and look up at a sky almost grey with stars usually unseen in the Los Angeles haze.

We were always awake well before our exhausted parents out and up to the field to see if we could tell which horse would be ours. Using all our guile, we would try to bribe “Lefty” into assigning us the mount of our choice. Years later the names of the horses: Shorty, Cinderella Rags, Midnight,… Juno..still evoke the simultaneous sense of isolation and absorption into that vast wilderness.

Once our parents were up, the first of many breakfast feasts unfolded. An endless supply of eggs and sausage cooked over camp stoves that had to be pumped regularly least they gradually die down. For us kids – the special treat of cereal in it’s own little box – (yes, even the forbidden sugary ones!).. and the joy of burning them after eating, budding pyros that we were.

Finally, when the last mule was packed and the arguments over the horses complete, we were given a boost by a willing hand to sit with legs splayed across gentle twitching flanks that smelled of sweat and leather, sun and grass, and the day’s journey over steep switchbacks would begin.  The sun would start to climb and our eyes would droop with the hypnotic steady sway of the ride but we would fight to stay awake to savor every second until we reached our camp site and bid goodbye to our rides.

Again, the bustle of making camp, erecting tents, finding firewood (no small feat above tree line!) and getting that first fire going with a special stash of pine needles, twigs and cones secreted from down the trail.  No gas for Dad!  He may have been a thermodynamical engineer in the busy city, but during these 10 days he was “everyman”  and would create and sustain our very world with us. We all took turns watching the fire, banking it when it got low, calling out for wood runs when needed. Even the youngest of us took turns with the firestick at times.

 I remember a land of unfocused blue sky that made your eyes water just to look at it. A sky with sun and moon present at the same time. I remember shadowed hill sides with caches of slowly melting snow the texture of gravel, tinged pink with algae and, if we were lucky, a stock of fresh caught rainbow trout for dinner. I remember carpets of lichen on rough edged granite with infinite palates of grey and green. I remember the bleached bones of an animal and wondering at the strange curve of its long teeth that caused its death after it could no longer gnaw enough to keep them worn down.

Come nightfall, after the dishes were done with water hauled in sweating canvas buckets, we would pick an adult’s legs to lean against and listen to the stories of our lives. Travels with Charlie, The Hobbit, The Once and Future King… all blending with the smoke and the stars until, one by one, we would be carried off and tucked into the snug flannel bags.